Ferenc Liszt composed his Fantasy on themes from Mozart's two masterly operas Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni by the end of 1842 or the beginning of January 1843 at the latest on the evidence that he played the piece in Berlin on 11th January 1843. The piece was not quite finished in manuscript, but the lacunae-the end of a brief transition in the closing section (bars 574-576) and the end of the work (bars 602-616)-are so insignificant that he probably tried out an improvised solution in performance. For reasons which have not come down to us Liszt never finished the manuscript and he does not seem to have played the work again.